Category Archives: Morality

Numerous people have read Matthew 7:1 out of context and come to the conclusion that Christians aren’t supposed to judge anybody’s behavior. David Croteau, in Urban Legends of the New Testament, writes an entire chapter to explain why this conclusion is incorrect. First, Croteau fleshes out the faulty position:

All forms of judging are commanded to cease. Don’t judge other people, believers or unbelievers, based on what you see them doing, on their lifestyle, on how they dress, or on what music they listen to. Jesus is calling us to a higher standard, to put aside our differences and live in unity with one another. Judging others disrupts unity; it divides the church. The world is looking at us wondering if we’ll ever be united, if we’ll ever demonstrate love for one another. The more we judge one another, the weaker our witness will be.

Croteau then explains, in detail, what Matthew 7:1 does not mean.

The Greek word translated ‘judge’ by virtually every Bible translation has a range of meanings. It can refer to making a selection (‘prefer’), passing judgment based on the correctness of something (‘discern’), or judging someone to be guilty (‘condemn’). The prohibition in Matthew 7: 1 is against condemning other people. Jesus is commanding them not to be severely critical and judgmental. The Sermon on the Mount calls on Christians to judge others in the sense of being discerning.

Jesus’ illustration immediately following this prohibition is primarily intended to communicate the hypocritical penchant humans have for criticizing others while tolerating the same (or worse) behavior in themselves (Matt 7: 3– 5). Jesus concludes that illustration by saying that after the log is removed from your own eye, then you will be able to see clearly enough to help your friend by removing the speck from his eye. This means that you will have to see the speck, the ‘minor shortcoming,’ in order to remove it. This involves judging (in the sense of discernment) on some level.

In Matthew 7: 6, Jesus prohibits his followers from giving ‘what is holy to dogs’ or from tossing ‘your pearls before pigs.’ Obedience to Jesus’ words requires discerning the identity of the ‘dogs’ and of the ‘pigs.’

Finally, how are Jesus’ followers expected to watch out for ‘false prophets’ (Matt 7: 15) if they are prohibited from discerning who is false? From the larger context of Matthew’s Gospel, one passage in particular sticks out as relevant: Matthew 18: 15– 20. Jesus commands his followers to rebuke fellow followers when they sin. The process outlined in these verses involves much judging, again, in the sense of discernment. John Stott aptly concludes that ‘the command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind.’

In the context of the entire New Testament, a prohibition against discernment appears to fail as well. Jesus’ own teaching in John 7: 24 appears to contradict Matthew 7: 1 on the surface: ‘Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment.’ Here is an explicit command from Jesus to ‘judge,’ using the same word as in Matthew 7: 1. In the context Jesus is discussing how the Jews (or possibly the Jewish leaders) were passing judgment on Jesus (referring to discernment) regarding his actions on the Sabbath (see John 7: 23). So he commands them to cease discerning based on ‘mere appearances’ (NIV), a phrase that refers to a ‘superficial’ discernment. Instead of discerning superficially, they are commanded to discern based on a ‘righteous judgment.’ Jesus is explaining that a right or correct judgment of himself will lead them to conclude that he is actually fulfilling the laws of circumcision and Sabbath (cf. John 7: 22– 23).

Croteau goes on to provide other examples in the New Testament where Christians are commanded to judge. He concludes:

A strong case can be made that the overall teaching in the New Testament is for Christians to be discerning in areas including others’ sin and false teaching. Christians should diligently discern in at least both of these areas.

If Christians are to judge, then what is Jesus teaching in Matthew 7?

In contrast to interpreting Matthew 7: 1 as a prohibition against discernment, it is a prohibition against an overly judgmental attitude. Jesus’ disciples are to be committed to a righteous life, but he does not authorize them to have a judgmental attitude. The reason Jesus prohibits this is spelled out in the second half of 7: 1: ‘so that you won’t be judged.’ While this phrase could mean that by being censorious you invite others to be overly critical of yourself, it most likely means that when you are overly critical of others, God will judge you with those same standards. Being quick to condemn others is inviting the condemnation of God on your life.

People are incapable of knowing with any certainty another person’s heart, nor can we know their motives. Stott concludes: ‘To be censorious is to presume arrogantly to anticipate the day of judgment, to usurp the prerogative of the divine Judge, in fact to try to play God.’ Rather than requiring blindness, Matthew 7: 1 is ‘a plea to be generous.’ Augustine summarizes Jesus’ teaching this way: ‘We are taught nothing else, but that in the case of those actions respecting which it is doubtful with what intention they are done, we are to put the better construction on them.’ This is what some call giving ‘the charitable assumption.’

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Numerous people have read Matthew 7:1 out of context and come to the conclusion that Christians aren’t supposed to judge anybody’s behavior. David Croteau, in Urban Legends of the New Testament, writes an entire chapter to explain why this conclusion is incorrect. First, Croteau fleshes out the faulty position:

All forms of judging are commanded to cease. Don’t judge other people, believers or unbelievers, based on what you see them doing, on their lifestyle, on how they dress, or on what music they listen to. Jesus is calling us to a higher standard, to put aside our differences and live in unity with one another. Judging others disrupts unity; it divides the church. The world is looking at us wondering if we’ll ever be united, if we’ll ever demonstrate love for one another. The more we judge one another, the weaker our witness will be.

Croteau then explains, in detail, what Matthew 7:1 does not mean.

The Greek word translated ‘judge’ by virtually every Bible translation has a range of meanings. It can refer to making a selection (‘prefer’), passing judgment based on the correctness of something (‘discern’), or judging someone to be guilty (‘condemn’). The prohibition in Matthew 7: 1 is against condemning other people. Jesus is commanding them not to be severely critical and judgmental. The Sermon on the Mount calls on Christians to judge others in the sense of being discerning.

Jesus’ illustration immediately following this prohibition is primarily intended to communicate the hypocritical penchant humans have for criticizing others while tolerating the same (or worse) behavior in themselves (Matt 7: 3– 5). Jesus concludes that illustration by saying that after the log is removed from your own eye, then you will be able to see clearly enough to help your friend by removing the speck from his eye. This means that you will have to see the speck, the ‘minor shortcoming,’ in order to remove it. This involves judging (in the sense of discernment) on some level.

In Matthew 7: 6, Jesus prohibits his followers from giving ‘what is holy to dogs’ or from tossing ‘your pearls before pigs.’ Obedience to Jesus’ words requires discerning the identity of the ‘dogs’ and of the ‘pigs.’

Finally, how are Jesus’ followers expected to watch out for ‘false prophets’ (Matt 7: 15) if they are prohibited from discerning who is false? From the larger context of Matthew’s Gospel, one passage in particular sticks out as relevant: Matthew 18: 15– 20. Jesus commands his followers to rebuke fellow followers when they sin. The process outlined in these verses involves much judging, again, in the sense of discernment. John Stott aptly concludes that ‘the command to judge not is not a requirement to be blind.’

In the context of the entire New Testament, a prohibition against discernment appears to fail as well. Jesus’ own teaching in John 7: 24 appears to contradict Matthew 7: 1 on the surface: ‘Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment.’ Here is an explicit command from Jesus to ‘judge,’ using the same word as in Matthew 7: 1. In the context Jesus is discussing how the Jews (or possibly the Jewish leaders) were passing judgment on Jesus (referring to discernment) regarding his actions on the Sabbath (see John 7: 23). So he commands them to cease discerning based on ‘mere appearances’ (NIV), a phrase that refers to a ‘superficial’ discernment. Instead of discerning superficially, they are commanded to discern based on a ‘righteous judgment.’ Jesus is explaining that a right or correct judgment of himself will lead them to conclude that he is actually fulfilling the laws of circumcision and Sabbath (cf. John 7: 22– 23).

Croteau goes on to provide other examples in the New Testament where Christians are commanded to judge. He concludes:

A strong case can be made that the overall teaching in the New Testament is for Christians to be discerning in areas including others’ sin and false teaching. Christians should diligently discern in at least both of these areas.

If Christians are to judge, then what is Jesus teaching in Matthew 7?

In contrast to interpreting Matthew 7: 1 as a prohibition against discernment, it is a prohibition against an overly judgmental attitude. Jesus’ disciples are to be committed to a righteous life, but he does not authorize them to have a judgmental attitude. The reason Jesus prohibits this is spelled out in the second half of 7: 1: ‘so that you won’t be judged.’ While this phrase could mean that by being censorious you invite others to be overly critical of yourself, it most likely means that when you are overly critical of others, God will judge you with those same standards. Being quick to condemn others is inviting the condemnation of God on your life.

People are incapable of knowing with any certainty another person’s heart, nor can we know their motives. Stott concludes: ‘To be censorious is to presume arrogantly to anticipate the day of judgment, to usurp the prerogative of the divine Judge, in fact to try to play God.’ Rather than requiring blindness, Matthew 7: 1 is ‘a plea to be generous.’ Augustine summarizes Jesus’ teaching this way: ‘We are taught nothing else, but that in the case of those actions respecting which it is doubtful with what intention they are done, we are to put the better construction on them.’ This is what some call giving ‘the charitable assumption.’

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Some Christians mistakenly believe that Jesus was the first person in history to express the ethical precepts taught in the Golden Rule. Many of the things Jesus said and did were unique in history, but we must also remember that Jesus’s intent was to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures. Much of what Jesus says and does are then based upon the words already recorded in the Old Testament. In addition, the Bible teaches that God has etched the moral law into the heart of every man (Rom 2:14-15) , so that nobody can claim ignorance of it. Therefore, it would be surprising if an ethical maxim like the Golden Rule had never been uttered by anyone before Jesus. So what is the history of the Golden Rule?

This maxim is a commonly accepted basis of human civilization, and has been expressed in other contexts throughout history in both positive and negative forms. Roman philosopher and statesman Seneca (4 BC– AD 65) expressed the principle positively, ‘Let us show our generosity in the same manner that we would wish to have it bestowed on us’ (De Beneficiis 2.1.1), while Chinese philosopher Confucius (551– 479 BC) stated it negatively, ‘Do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you!’ (Analects 15: 23; for other examples, see Betz 1995, 509– 16).

The precept appears to have been a common theme in Judaism at the time of Jesus. Tobit gives a negative form of the principle, ‘Watch yourself, my son, in everything you do, and discipline yourself in all your conduct. And what you hate, do not do to anyone’ (Tobit 4: 14b-15 NRSV). Hillel the Elder, an authority on Jewish Law (c. 70 BC– AD 10), supposedly held this motto, ‘What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.’ In the only text in the whole of rabbinic literature that attributes the saying to Hillel, the Elder goes on to say, ‘That is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary. Go and learn!’ (b. Šabb. 31a; see Alexander 1997, 363– 88).

Wilkins goes on to address the criticism that Jesus is adding nothing new to the Golden Rule with his teaching.

Critics have denied the uniqueness of Jesus’ teaching because this Golden Rule has been expressed in other contexts throughout history. Although the basic idea can be found elsewhere, Jesus’ expression of the Golden Rule represents a more demanding interpretation of love of one’s neighbor than was normal among other teachers of the time (France 2007, 284). Jesus’ teachings were significant because of the authority with which he taught as the Son of God who has come to fulfill the Law (5: 17– 20; 7: 28). Whereas other expressions of this saying indicate ethical aspiration, Jesus declares that the Golden Rule is the normative manifestation of his followers’ discipleship.

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Skeptics of Christianity sometimes claim that either God is subject to an external standard of justice and morality, or else whatever God arbitrarily says or does is the standard of justice and morality. Both of these choices are a problem, however, for the Christian.

If there is an external standard of justice, then God is not the ultimate being. There is a moral law that is greater than him. The Bible, however, rules that out.

If God can arbitrarily decide what is right and what is wrong, then justice and morality become meaningless because even though it is wrong to kill an innocent person today, tomorrow it could become OK, if God willed it to be. This idea, however, seems ludicrous as well.

The Christian answer to this dilemma is that God’s very nature is the Good and the Just. In other words, the moral law is built into God, and because God will always act according to his nature, the moral law will never change, and is thus not arbitrary. God is not subject to an external standard, because the standard is God himself.

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In Joshua chapter 2, Rahab lies to the king of Jericho by telling him the spies had already left the city and that the king’s men could track them down and capture them as they returned to the Jordan River. In reality, Rahab was hiding the spies on the roof of her house.

The Bible records that her family was spared by God in Joshua 6, and the New Testament speaks glowingly of her actions in Hebrews 11:31 and James 2:25. How can this be when she clearly lied? Isn’t it always a sin to lie?

Some argue that it is not clear that God blessed Rahab for lying. God certainly saved Rahab and blessed her for protecting the spies and assisting in the overthrow of Jericho. However, nowhere does the Bible explicitly say that God blessed Rahab for lying. God could have blessed her in spite of her lie, not because of it. . . .

Others insist that Rahab was faced with a real moral conflict. It may have been impossible for her to both save the spies and tell the truth to the soldiers of the king. If so, God would not hold Rahab responsible for this unavoidable moral conflict. Certainly a person cannot be held responsible for not keeping a lesser law in order to keep a higher obligation. The Bible commands obedience to the government (Rom. 13:1; Titus 3:1; 1 Peter 2:13), but there are many examples of justified civil disobedience when the government attempts to compel unrighteousness (Ex. 5; Dan. 3, 6; Rev. 13). The case of the Hebrew midwives lying to save the lives of the male children is perhaps the clearest example.

In summary, the biblical text never explicitly commends Rahab for her lie, so maybe Rahab is commended for her faith in God, despite her lie. Another option is that Rahab acted on the higher moral command (save the lives of the Israelites) over the lower command (do not lie) when she was presented with a situation where two moral laws were in conflict.

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I’ve been reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and came across one of the saddest cases of moral confusion I’ve seen in a long time.

Jobs is in his mid-twenties and is sleeping with a girl named Chrisann Brennan. They aren’t married, of course, because Jobs wasn’t interested. As long as he could have sex with her whenever he wanted, why would he marry her?

At some point, she gets pregnant and announces it to Steve. What is his reaction? Below is a quote from the biography:

There was no discussion of marriage . “I knew that she was not the person I wanted to marry, and we would never be happy, and it wouldn’t last long,” Jobs later said. “I was all in favor of her getting an abortion, but she didn’t know what to do. She thought about it repeatedly and decided not to, or I don’t know that she ever really decided— I think time just decided for her.”

Not only was he sleeping with a woman not his wife, but when he got her pregnant, his solution was to kill the baby because it might inconvenience him. But listen to what Brennan says next:

Brennan told me that it was her choice to have the baby: “He said he was fine with an abortion but never pushed for it.” Interestingly, given his own background, he was adamantly against one option. “He strongly discouraged me putting the child up for adoption,” she said.

Let me spell this out for you. Jobs was OK with Brennan killing the child, but he was adamantly opposed to Brennan putting the baby up for adoption!! What is especially cruel about this is that Jobs was himself adopted by wonderful parents who basically gave him everything he ever wanted.

In his twisted mind, it would be better for a person to be dead than be adopted. Make sense to you? I hope not.

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Some Bible critics claim that God commands the Israelites to steal (plunder) from the Egyptians in verse 22 in Exodus 3. How could God command theft?

The context around verse 22, however, makes it clear that the Israelites were to ask the Egyptians for valuable items that they could take with them into the desert. The Egyptians were paying back the Israelites for the mistreatment they endured.

It is certainly lawful for someone to be repaid for crimes committed against them, and this is exactly what happened when the Egyptians willfully gave their possessions to the departing Israelites. They certainly did not steal from them.

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Atheists often complain that they experience prejudice directed at them by theists. Theists, they claim, accuse atheists of being immoral because atheists have no transcendent standard of morality. There is a level of distrust, at least for some theists, that exists.

So why do some theists worry about the ethics of atheists? Is this worry warranted?

Ariely is very interested in business ethics and he reports on several experiments that shed some light on human dishonesty. Based on these studies, Ariely concludes that “when we are removed from any benchmarks of ethical thought, we tend to stray into dishonesty. But if we are reminded of morality at the moment we are tempted, then we are much more likely to be honest.”

He goes on to recommend that the ethical crisis he sees in America can be turned around by people regularly reading the holy books which codify their moral values. This is because his research shows that those people who are reminded of their moral values frequently act more ethically.

There is nothing new here that hasn’t been recommended by great thinkers for thousands of years. Moral virtue is a practice. You don’t just wake up every day and act with high moral integrity. It takes effort.

Herein lies why I think atheists are not trusted. Theists wonder, “When is the atheist reading his holy book?” Never, because he doesn’t believe in holy books. Is the atheist regularly being reminded by a pastor how he is supposed to behave? Is he studying the words and deeds of moral saints? No and no. These things usually happen in religious gatherings which most atheists avoid.

Speaking personally, I don’t go more than a week without reading or hearing about moral duties and virtues because I am reading the Bible and listening to godly men and women teach the moral precepts found in the Bible. I am also watching men and women of great moral character at my church every week. I am soaking it up.

Now, before I get a bunch of nasty comments, let me say that I know many atheists who are decent, law-abiding citizens. I even know some atheists who go above and beyond to help other people. So this is not meant as some kind of blanket indictment.

But, I am asking some hard questions of atheists. If you are an atheist, when are you soaking up moral teaching? How are you learning to be virtuous? Who is challenging you, week after week, to act with the highest integrity and morality? These are important questions for you to answer. The Christian who goes to church and reads her Bible regularly has a real advantage over you.

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One of the most popular, but misguided, challenges that atheists fling at theists is Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma. I have written about why this is no dilemma at all for theists in other blog posts, so I won’t cover that ground again now.

Philosopher Matt Flannagan, though, has introduced a new wrinkle in this debate. Flannagan argues persuasively that the Euthyphro Dilemma is actually a serious problem for those who argue that morality is the product of evolution.

In an article in the Christian Research Journal (vol. 36, number 01), Flannagan specifically challenges the position of Jerry Coyne, a biologist and outspoken atheist. Flannagan claims that “Coyne’s own secular account of morality falls prey to the Euthyphro dilemma.” Here is Flannagan:

After claiming that moral obligations cannot be constituted by God’s commands, Coyne offers an alternative: morality comes from evolution—humans evolved a capacity to instinctively feel that certain actions are wrong.

This position is pretty standard among many atheists that I speak to, so Coyne serves as a useful proxy for the wider atheist crowd. How is Coyne’s account susceptible to the Dilemma?

Plato’s question [in his dialogue Euthyphro] is equally applicable here. One can ask, “Are actions wrong because we have evolved a disposition to condemn them, or do we condemn them because they are wrong?” If the latter is the case, then actions are wrong prior to, and hence independently of, evolution, and so ethics is independent of evolution.

So how does Coyne avoid this problem?

To avoid this implication, Coyne must adopt the first option: actions are wrong because we have evolved an instinctive disposition to condemn these actions. The problem is this option makes morality arbitrary. Couldn’t evolution have produced rational beings that felt that infanticide and theft were obligatory or that rape was, in certain circumstances, OK?

As Darwin himself noted, “If men were reared under precisely the same conditions as hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering.”

So option 1, for Coyne, is also very troubling because now morality is arbitrary, based on the randomness of the evolutionary lottery.

Coyne is left with either affirming that 1) morality existed prior to and independent of evolution, or he must affirm 2) that morality is really just arbitrary because moral values could have turned out very differently. Now that’s a real dilemma.

Clearly the answer must be “yes.” In fact, the apostle Paul teaches this very truth in the book of Romans. There are some moral truths that can be known without a person ever acknowledging God’s existence. In fact, the world would be a complete disaster if everyone had to agree on the existence and attributes of God before anyone could know moral truths.

But it seems that atheists often think that Christians are making this claim. They think that Christians are saying a person cannot be moral or know right from wrong without believing in God. No Christian thinker of any stature has ever said this, though.

When Christians present moral arguments for God’s existence, or when they argue that moral values cannot exist unless God exists, they are making a very different point. David Baggett and Jerry Walls explain what is going on in their book Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality:

[I]t might seem inconsistent to argue that moral truth is dependent on God if we can know it without even thinking of God. This alleged inconsistency can be dispelled if we recognize, as numerous classical thinkers have pointed out, that the order of being is different from the order of knowing. That is, the order in which we come to know things might be different from the order in which things exist, or have come to exist.

The order of being has to do with metaphysics and the order of knowing has to do with epistemology. Christian arguments about God and morality are almost always about metaphysics (the order of being) and not about epistemology (the order of knowing). Baggett and Walls add:

Certain moral truths might be as evident to us as anything can be, but may still leave unanswered the question of where morality came from. Likewise, the foundations of morality might be at a greater distance from us in terms of immediate knowledge than morality itself. This is a fundamental distinction, but one that is often missed, resulting in needless confusion.

Baggett and Walls point out that many atheists just seem to completely miss this distinction:

Recent books defending atheism have perpetuated this confusion, unfortunately, but not surprisingly. For instance, Richard Dawkins seems to ignore this distinction when he asks, “if we have independent criteria for choosing among religious moralities, why not cut out the middle man and go straight for the moral choice without the religion?”

Nobody disagrees that we can gather a bunch of people from different worldviews together in a room and agree on a basic set of moral values. This simply is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the question of where these moral values come from. Answering this question is what atheists need to work on.